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Product Description
From Library Journal
Powell's epic of 20th-century England is actually composed of 12 novels divided into four "movements," although they can be read individually as separate works. The novels were originally published from the 1950s through the 1970s.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art. In the second volume they move to London in a whirl of marriage and adulteries, fashions and frivolities, personal triumphs and failures. These books "provide an unsurpassed picture, at once gay and melancholy, of social and artistic life in Britain between the wars" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.). The third volume follows Nick into army life and evokes London during the blitz. In the climactic final volume, England has won the war and must now count the losses.
Four very different young men on the threshold of manhood dominate this opening volume of A Dance to the Music of Time. The narrator, Jenkins—a budding writer—shares a room with Templer, already a passionate womanizer, and Stringham, aristocratic and reckless. Widermerpool, as hopelessly awkward as he is intensely ambitious, lurks on the periphery of their world. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, these four gain their initiations into sex, society, business, and art. Considered a masterpiece of modern fiction, Powell's epic creates a rich panorama of life in England between the wars.
Includes these novels:
A Question of Upbringing
A Buyer's Market
The Acceptance World
"Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. His admirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician."—Chicago Tribune
"A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders changing relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu. . . . Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's."—Elizabeth Janeway, New York Times
"One of the most important works of fiction since the Second World War. . . . The novel looked, as it began, something like a comedy of manners; then, for a while, like a tragedy of manners; now like a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience."—Naomi Bliven, New Yorker
Four very different young men on the threshold of manhood dominate this opening volume of A Dance to the Music of Time. The narrator, Jenkins—a budding writer—shares a room with Templer, already a passionate womanizer, and Stringham, aristocratic and reckless. Widermerpool, as hopelessly awkward as he is intensely ambitious, lurks on the periphery of their world. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, these four gain their initiations into sex, society, business, and art. Considered a masterpiece of modern fiction, Powell's epic creates a rich panorama of life in England between the wars.
Includes these novels:
A Question of Upbringing
A Buyer's Market
The Acceptance World
"Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. His admirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician."—Chicago Tribune
"A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders changing relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu. . . . Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's."—Elizabeth Janeway, New York Times
"One of the most important works of fiction since the Second World War. . . . The novel looked, as it began, something like a comedy of manners; then, for a while, like a tragedy of manners; now like a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience."—Naomi Bliven, New Yorker
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quite good,
This review is from: A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement (Paperback)
I must confess that I write this review without the perspective of some of the other reviewers who have finished all twelve novels. But the first three novels each stand alone quite nicely. The first novel in this movement, A Question of Upbringing, is perhaps the most enjoyable of the lot, certainly the most humorous, and contains that sense of fun and nostalgia so prevalent in tales of schooldays. A Buyer's Market has its moments, particularly in the triumphant sequence involving Mrs. Andriadis' party, but somewhat pales in comparison to the novels that immediately precede and follow it. The third novel, The Acceptance World, is arguably the best of the three, certainly the richest in characterization and more interesting because of the first sense in the novels of the outside political world.I think it is fair to point out that Powell's narrator seems, to some degree, modeled upon the narrator of Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, even sharing the same first name, Nick. One irritating but perhaps essential element of the novels is the large number of coincidences that take place (something perhaps borrowed from Dickens; see Great Expectations et al). But these minor faults are not outweighed by the richness of these three novels.
5.0 out of 5 stars
addictive, unforgettable,
By Dulcinea del Toboso "emarey" (San Antonio) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement (Paperback)
I found this series to be a slow start but midway through the first of the three novels in the book, I was hooked. I couldn't put the book down and when I finished it, couldn't wait to get the next volume. As the title probably suggests, a theme in the book is--I guess you could say-- the continual (random?) grouping and regrouping of people and events in life. At first, this can be a bit off-putting. You get interested in a certain set of characters, then suddenly, they're gone. Keep reading--they'll be back again in even more interesting/unlikely circumstances. Powell's characters are memorable, vivid, and eerily real--through the course of the books, they undergo various transformations which are fascinating to observe. The narrator always remains a bit mysterious which I found added to the book's interest. Powell creates a world of instability where relationships, morals, culture, even governments, are continually in flux. It's often sad, but very often hilarious, too. These books offer hours and hours of enjoyment you won't soon forget.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worthwhile... Characters will grow on you,
By
This review is from: A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement (Paperback)
The writing is undeniably good, although I found book II a bit dry (at one point I thought I was reading a Henry James novel. Not good!) The pace picks up again in book III. There are plenty of amusing comments about human nature, especially relationship between the sexes, in addition to "fine art" and the "literary world", etc, etc. Character development is an especially strong point. Reading volume I made me want to read volume II.
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